Three Credits Short

Thirty-some years ago I added up my college credits and found I was three short of graduation. I looked through the catalog of summer courses and found Introduction to Theater Arts. I took it.  

The final project was a monologue. Somehow I selected one from La Turista by Sam Shepard. It starts with a character bounding from a hotel bathroom saying, “Well, I feel like a new man after all that. I think I finally flushed that old amoeba right down the old drain.” I was nervous as hell. I hid behind a pretense of smoking a cigarette.  It was a bust.  

Flash forward to Saturday, Saint Patrick’s Day, 2018  I was doing the final project of my acting class at Freehold: a scene from Sam Shepard’s True West, which I did with a partner.  It was meant to be a real performance and students invited friends to come be our audience. The instructor called “lights up” and my partner and I flowed across the stage.  It was effortless and wonderful.  

It didn’t necessarily feel like a completion or a fixing or a vindication or anything like that but I noticed the parallel and the connection across time. I was grateful for my scene partner, the instructor, my classmates, the audience, and Freehold for providing a great, empowering experience.  

Pictured: the golf club my character used in the scene.

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